Twelve Days of Winter: Crime at Christmas

and Isolde. Peter pulls the mobile out and answers it. Force of habit.

‘Hello?’

‘Pete? Pete, it’s me: Tony.’

Peter groans. As if today wasn’t bad enough.

‘Pete, we’ve got big trouble!’

‘It’s too late.’

‘Too late? Shit! They’re not there are they? Pete, are the police there? Oh FUCK!’

Peter sighs. Tony has always been excitable – an unfortunate consequence of dealing in illegal images and video files.

‘No, the police aren’t here. I’m. . .’ He looks at The Man who shakes his head. The meaning is clear: this is just between the two of them. ‘Margaret’s not doing too well.’ Which was true enough. If he was lucky, the throat cancer would take her before the money ran out and The Man turned on him. She’d never have to know.

‘What the fuck do I care about your bloody wife? They’ve arrested someone: that fucking idiot school teacher. He’ll talk!’

Peter actually laughs. Throws his head back and laughs.

‘Pete? What the fuck’s wrong with you? Did you not hear what I said? He’ll turn us in!’

The Man puts a hand on Peter’s shoulder. ‘What’s so damn funny?’

‘I want my painting back.’ He grins like a maniac. ‘They’ve arrested someone in the same . . . “club”. And as soon as he talks it’s all out in the open. You’ve just lost your leverage.’

‘Like hell I have.’

‘Everyone will know. I’ll be ruined anyway. So tell whoever you like: it’s not going to make any difference.’ He pulls back his shoulders. ‘Now give me back my bloody painting!’

There’s a pause, then The Man narrows his eyes. ‘Who is it? Who’ve they arrested?’

‘James Kirkhill – he teaches English at Kingsmeath Secondary.’

‘And they’ve not picked up anyone else in your “club”?’

‘No.’

‘Good.’ The Man pats him on the back. ‘Then I have another “investment opportunity” for you and your friends. . .’

The Armagnac was nearly finished, just one or two mouthfuls left and it would be time. One small step for mankind, one giant leap for Lord Peter Forsyth-Leven. It wasn’t just his face that was numb now – his hands were like frozen claws, he couldn’t feel his feet – but that didn’t matter. Soon he wouldn’t be feeling anything ever again.

All of the great things he’d done in his life, the charity work, the glittering political career, and this was going to be what he was remembered for.

Paedophile. Suicide. Murderer.

The first two he could have lived with, no pun intended, but not the last. That was too much to bear on top of everything else.

He drained the bottle, squinted at the empty glass, then threw it out into the void. For a moment it sparkled through the falling snow, turning end over end, fading from sight. He held his breath, straining to hear it smashing against the rocks below . . . but there was nothing. Just the wind and the snow and the night.

Peter clambered all the way up to the top of the battlement wall.

It was time.

The plan is simple: everyone in the ‘club’ chips in five thousand pounds, and that buys them a life. One human life for thirty-five thousand pounds. Not that much really, when you think about it. Five thousand pounds to carry on like nothing had ever happened. Safe to continue with their private little . . . ‘indiscretions’.

Five thousand pounds to have someone killed.

The Man wouldn’t go until Peter gave him everyone’s name, to make sure no one ‘forgot’ to pay, taking The Pear Tree with him. Leaving a shadow behind on the faded wallpaper. So Peter fills in the time pacing back and forth in the lounge. Drinking cups of tea. Marching up and down the stairs to check on Margaret. Sitting at the dining room table, staring at the hole Monet’s painting has left behind.

The call comes at half past nine – it’s Tony, sounding like Christmas has arrived three days early. ‘Did you see the news? They released the bastard on bail this afternoon. Found his body at eight – hanged in his bedroom. Suicide note, the whole works! He topped himself, we don’t have to give your man a bloody penny. It’s perfect!’

Perfect.

Peter sits at the table and looks up at the shadow on the wall. ‘What makes you think The Man didn’t kill him and make it look like suicide?’

‘Don’t be. . .’ A lengthy pause. ‘Can he do that?’

Peter almost laughs. ‘Of course he can, but it doesn’t matter, does it? He has our names. What do you think he’ll do if we don’t pay up?’

Another pause, and then a lot of swearing. ‘You bastard! You put him onto us! You stupid, fucking, ignorant bas-’

Peter hangs up, buries his head in his hands, and cries.

He’s betrayed everyone: his family, his friends, his constituents, his city, even his fellow paedophiles. . .

There’s only one more thing he has to do, and then it can all go away. There’s no other choice.

Eighty feet, straight down.

He was too drunk to remember enough secondary school physics to work out how long it would take to hit the ground, or how fast he’d be going when he did.

Paedophile, suicide, murderer. . .

Could he let Margaret find out about the horrible things he’d done? That he’d arranged to have a man killed. No matter what that idiot Tony said, it was obvious The Man had staged James Kirkhill’s suicide. The schoolteacher had died, just so Peter’s secret would be safe. It was all his fault.

So he’d gone upstairs to Margaret’s bedroom, kissed her gently on the forehead, lied to her about how beautiful she looked, then held a pillow over her face until she stopped struggling. She would never know what a monster she’d married.

Peter took off his glasses, closed his eyes and stepped quietly off of the battlements.

11: Pipers Piping

Dirty. Fucking. Bastard. Craig sat in the car, scowling out of the windscreen, grinding his teeth. Drinking steadily from a bottle of Highland Park. The whisky burned deep inside, stoking the fires.

The song on the radio dribbled to a halt. ‘‘Ha, ha! You’re listening to Sensational Steve’s Festive Funathon; hope you’ve all been good for Santa!’’

Prick.

Then wailing and screeching erupted from the car’s speakers – the Oldcastle Military Pipe Band murdering ‘Silent Night’.

Craig turned his scowl from the windscreen to the car radio. Then smashed his fist into it. His knuckles creaked and stung: the skin tore across them, oozing blood. He screamed and swore, yanked his seat back as far as it would go and stomped his heel down on the plastic casing. Again and again and again. The music stopped.

One more swig of Highland Park then Craig rammed the cork back in, stuffed the bottle in a pocket of his long Barbour coat, and dragged himself out of the car. He’d made an absolute cock-up of parking the thing, leaving it diagonally across two spaces, but it didn’t matter.

He popped the boot and pulled out the shotgun.